Chuck

For those of you who requested more information about the new interview policy at Yale: http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/jan/11/grad-school-divided-over-interviews/ Yale is an interesting place. To anyone who is seriously considering attending, I'd highly recommend having some good heart-to-heart's with current grad students.

...of course the other possibility is that really did accept only 8, and they're actually aiming for a cohort size of 3-4.

This seems much more likely. The conversations I've been having with POI's at several different departments have had similar framing. For example, Wisconsin has told me they're "accepting for a cohort of 15." "For" being the operative word here. I think that all departments probably try to benefit from this linguistic ambiguity. A Yield rate of 50% is about the upper limit for even the most popular departments. So NYU will be admitting at least 16.

I haven't heard of yield rates (% of accepted applicants who choose to enroll) going much higher than 50 or 60%, even at the most popular programs. NYU must be aiming for tiny tiny cohort.

??!! NYU the new most competitive program? 1.9% !!! Insane. Might as well pick people by throwing darts. Must be a funding thing. Does anyone know how many they usually accept?

Congrats to the new Yalies! Yale's Graduate School is newly requiring all departments to conduct phone interviews before they will formally admit candidates. It's a ballsy move that a lot of departments disagree with - on both functional and logistical grounds. I think a lot of DGS's are going through the motions with these phone calls. This is probably what Andy334 experienced. Yes, Yale's stipend is ridiculous for New Haven. I would only caution that you will be living in New Haven, and life saving Metro North tickets to New York will add up $$$ quickly. Also, the sometimes inevitable life saving move to New York in your dissertation years will also be quite expensive.

Absent a truly astronomical airfare price, I would travel to any school I was about to commit 5-9 years of my life to. All the prestige and research fit in the world won't make up for a bad vibe from a department.

Awesome! It does make me feel better. Crossing my fingers for you right now, I'll buy you a beer right back! There are only 2 faculty at Oregon who are strong fits for me, but both of them are really really strong fits.

I would write a polite letter inquiring about your application status. Then mention that you have other offers on the table, but school x is your #1 choice. This shows that you're already a successful and savvy applicant. Remember, you're flattering them/wanting them without appearing desperate. Personalize the letter by mentioning any contact you've had with professors/students/the department (hey, they have 100's of applicants, they're likely not going to remember you well). Don't gush too much. Be professional and direct. If you feel up to it, pick a couple of major themes out of your SOP to remind them why they are a perfect match for you. Writing the letter will help you feel better about having done everything you absolutely can to get into your dream school. But... don't get your hopes up too too much. Keep in mind that this process is highly stochastic. This even goes for applicants who appear to walk on water. You just really really don't know what's going on in the department, on the admissions committee, and with other applicants. There is a very big chance that even the most qualified candidate will be rejected from any program- due to the balance of sub-disciplines in the department, which professors are taking on advisees, who is on the admissions committee, who else is applying, what the funding situation is like... the list goes on and on. All you can do is give it your best shot. Good luck!!

oh, sorry panasic. Well, I still think you should write whichever department it is you're talking about! I'm having a strange experience now at a school where I've been accepted. It's really starting to become apparent to me that, as much as we agonize over which departments "want" us, the departments are doing a very similar thing on the other end. They know that many of us have applied to 10+ places, and they're constantly looking for clues as to our real level of interest in them and whether or not we would actually come if they took the time and expended the effort to actually admit us.

Sociograd & panasic, I'm sorry that Wisconsin hasn't gotten back to you. That seems bizarre to me! I don't know why they would think it appropriate to keep people waiting. I really think you should call. At this point, they're pushing the envelope on being a bit rude and unprofessional. Unfortunately (though I could very well be wrong) my sense is that all the acceptances have been sent out. The department is having a visit day on March 9th. The usual courtesy for visit days is that logistics like flights and hotels and time off from work need to be arranged several weeks in advance. As was the case last year, it appears that the department sends out all its decisions in one wave at the beginning of February. I think some people on this board received official notice of wait-list status at that time(?) Of course, I'm just connecting the dots here and don't really have any insider information. Let's hope I'm wrong? Maybe they're still putting together an extended wait list? I've heard tails (though at another school) of especially diligent and pushy wait-listed applicants charming the department into accepting them outright by convincing the department that the department really is their #1 fit. At this point, don't underestimate the amount by which a department really wants you to want them.

Ohh! I'm getting anxious and excited for Oregon!! So far I've only been accepted to departments where I made some sort of significant faculty contact (or, in the case of Wisconsin, where I at least tried to make contact even if I was actually totally ignored by faculty and only ever got through to departmental secretaries). I haven't gotten any outright rejections yet, but I can sense that rejection may be in the works for places where I didn't make contact. Maybe I'll chalk this up to "things learned this application cycle"- but it's certainly starting to look like a possible trend for me. Thing is that I didn't make any faculty contact at Oregon. I'm actually quite interested in a number of faculty there (and this should be pretty evident from my SOP and research interests), but now I'm wishing I had. Oh well.

Thanks, Sleepycat! I really appreciate learning from fellow folks on gradcafe as well. My background is rather unusual, and not in sociology at all, so It's really heartening for me to learn that others also are coming from myriad different life and educational experiences as well. In my master's program, I learned the most from folks with backgrounds different from my own, and I hope my PhD program will be the same! Things that I'm really heartened to learn: - almost half of us will be entering PhD programs with a prior master's degree - a full 2/3 of us also are dogged by student loans (hey, misery loves company I guess) - A good proportion of us are "diverse" in the demographic sense - At least half of us have experience working in the "real world." And... my favorite (because it shows how truly pluralistic sociology is): - A large majority of us are coming to the PhD with prior academic degrees outside of sociology. Now, if someone can make a poll with more comprehensive options for research interests, I'd be really curious to learn more about how we stack up there! (as someone who is a relative newcomer to the field, I don't think this task should be left up to me).

Agreed! Sorry about that. Unfortunately, only 20 "answers" are allowed per "question" and I ran out of room. Want to take a stab at another poll entirely about research topics? Would be pretty interesting to see the results of that one.

Continuing in the fine tradition of the oh-so-popular poll...

Great advice here. My experience with sociology programs has been that most seem to operate on the "cohort model." That is, the committee will admit the target number of applicants based on qualifications with an eye towards an even distribution in general subfield of interest, but without much consideration for the specific advisor an applicant says they want to work with. So, unless it's clear that your interests are so narrow that there is only one faculty member who would be a suitable advisor and he/she is not available, your application is viewed in the same pool as all the rest. I have heard of some cases where a student has established a genuine connection with a faculty member (usually through previous collaboration or other substantive knowledge of the applicant beyond a simple e-mail exchange), which is likely the only real exception to the cohort model of admissions. This is in contrast to many other fields, which admit on the "lab/advisor model." As someone whose research straddles several disciplines, I've been having a da&% frustrating time trying to suss out the admissions paradigms of each department I applied to. They can be radically different. Wisconsin's sociology department discourages faculty contact until after admission to their program. Nevertheless, I sent repeated e-mails to several faculty in their program. I never received a response. I found this a bit unprofessional, as I had genuine questions about my research fit with their program, and wasn't just trying to fluff up my name for the committee. Now I've been admitted, and my questions still remain. Here's to hoping they will be answered at the visit day in March? Or maybe if I e-mail faculty now, I'll actually receive a response? I'm not that bitter...really At another department (in a different social science discipline), I made the effort to visit the school in mid-October. I was told that if I didn't get the attention of one particular faculty member, my application would be summarily denied. I set up meetings with several faculty (at this school, they actually did respond to my e-mails! joy!). I sit down to a meeting with "professor x" and the first thing he tells me is that he's "already identified" the two students he's admitting for the fall. This is a full two months before the application deadline!!! He hasn't even gotten to see the whole pool of applicants! Professor X goes on to tell me that most successful applicants (this is a top department in the discipline) are already "volunteering" in their prospective PhD labs. Nevermind the formal admissions process. Talk about quid pro quo! Inappropriate. The good thing for most of you all is that sociology departments don't appear to operate this way. Though I would hazard a guess that, especially in the most competitive programs, there is always going to be a little nepotism around the edges. The #1 concern of schools is to admit "the best" candidates, and you can bet that (especially when they have to sift through 400 applications) they are going to use whatever inside tracks they can to identify "the best." I've heard some unsavory things about a particular Ivy's sociology department. Not that it is impossible that one will be admitted without connections, but that a large proportion of their cohort includes people who have augmented their formal admissions application in substantive ways. Connections, connections, connections. I'm happy to report that I don't believe this to be the case at Wisconsin. BTW- I've noticed in recent days that several people on this forum have said things like "Just rejected from Program X! Oh well, I can't blame them as there is nobody there doing the kind of work I'm interested in." This is baffling to me. Why expend the time, money, and effort to apply to a program you already know isn't a good fit? This is a 5-8 year PhD we're talking about, fit is pretty much everything. Are people just rationalizing a la sour grapes?

I'm going to assume, based on last year's pattern of admits on the results survey, that all the Wisconsin admits have gone out. But... in case that's not the case, their visit day is March 9.

I didn't apply, but now I wish I had! Boulder is a beautiful town, and CU is a gorgeous campus. It's sunny for 350 days a year in Colorado, and the opportunities for outdoor recreation are simply unparalleled. From what I hear, their Soc. department has some great things going on. I hope you get in, Supernovasky! Crossing my fingers for you.

Congrats to everyone who received good news from Indiana! I hear great things about their program. Can we do a comparison of the funding offers between Wisconsin and Indiana? It would be good to put out in the open how two top public programs stack up. Wisconsin's is: Guaranteed 5 years of funding for all admitted students. TA's & RA's are paid $7000 - $7600 a semester. Tuition remission and health insurance is included, but the letter mentions nothing about summer funding. I have been in contact with a current student at Wisconsin who says there is an additional $500/semester in student activity fees charged by the university which all students have to pay. This fee was also conveniently omitted from the admit letter. The paucity of resources at Wisconsin, especially compared to the private schools, is starting to freak me out.

Not that it's likely much consolation to anyone whose waiting, but my application status still says "pending" as well. I don't think this is surprising though, because departments are required to submit their admitted candidates to the graduate school which reviews files to make sure they meet minimum entrance requirements. So, for any program at UW, there is going to be a time lag between when your department decides to admit you and when you are officially admitted by the University. I suppose it's possible that a more cautious department might wait to notify candidates until they are officially accepted by the university, but that doesn't appear to be the case with sociology. Wish I had more for you all! I know the waiting can be agony. I can't imagine why Sociology wouldn't just send out all the letters at once, like they apparently did last year.

That's awesome, Super! Continue to be diligent, you will come up with something great.

My fear is likely unwarranted, but I'd like to keep too much identifying information off of this public profile. At least until all admissions are said and done. I will say that I have a very specific and well-defined research interest that fits with faculty across a number of disciplines. So, while I applied to 7 departments, only two of them are sociology programs (Wisconsin & Oregon). This choice has less to do with the strength/reputation of individual departments or universities, and more to do with faculty research fit. That being said, I am extremely excited about Wisconsin! I only wish the department were better funded. Wisconsin is the 3rd program I've heard from. Depending on possibly better funding opportunities and/or the availability of a rockstar faculty member at couple of other schools I applied to, it may be my first choice. Also, I'm really curious to see what the Wisconsin cohort is like on visit day.

Yeah, the difference is dramatic. Though my research area doesn't fit at all with anyone at Yale or Duke, I'm now almost wishing I had applied anyway. I'm 30 years old. I live frugally now, and I honestly don't know how I can be an adult on $14,000 a year. Also keep in mind that Wisconsin doesn't provide summer research funding (or, at least, besides mentioning a small "welcome check" to say "yay you completed your first year!", their admit letter conveniently leaves out any mention of how to fill that obvious hole).

Yale is something like $26K, with 3 of those years on full-fellowship funding and 2 more with TA/RA obligation. Though this includes health insurance, I've heard horrible things about the Yale Health Plan. Certainly elevates the desirability of their program!

Oh please, do tell! I'm looking at Wisconsin's package right now and thinking "How am I supposed to live on this?" Should have applied to private schools....